Saving techniques for a New Year with Planwise

This is a guest post from our friends at Planwise.com

Are you in a long term relationship? Are either of you good at saving? Are you the type of couple that likes to travel and go to cool places but don’t plan things out enough financially? Make some adjustments for the new year to help you do those things you want to do.

Joint Account

Depending on your type of relationship and trust with your significant other you could set up a joint bank account. This is a big commitment and may not be the best solution for every couple.

Sharing a bank account comes with a major commitment, when you spend money you will essentially be spending money your significant other and you have both made. This could create some controversy about spending, but it could also work out in your favor as you can see what both of you are doing with the money. With the joint account it could make it easy for each of you to set aside a set amount of money each week or month for savings.

The savings could be for something specific, like a vacation or a major purchase or simply could be saving money just to save money. Setting up a savings account is good, but it shouldn’t stop there. There is software out there that helps financially plan for things you want to do. Planwise is newer tool in the finance industry that helps do exactly that – plan for things you want to do!

Joint Savings – No Shared Account

If the commitment of a shared account scares you like it might to most people you can keep your individual accounts and have a savings jar. It doesn’t have to be a jar per say exactly, just something that the both of you put money into on a weekly, or monthly basis to save for whatever it is you two want to do.

If you do this, you also have to decide where to store the money, at one of your houses, a parents house? Who is trusted the most? This could create some unnecessary conflict. Another downside to this is you end up with lots of cash just stored away in someone’s house in a jar. This isn’t the best way to store cash as something could happen to it. Weird things can happen when there are large amounts of cash in one place. Not saying that every person is shady, but ‘weird’ things happen.

Save by yourself but together

This type of savings is probably the most common. If as a couple you decide to plan a vacation somewhere, the cost of the trip should be split 50-50 unless someone offers to pay for more of the trip than the other. Instead of having a shared account or putting money in a jar, each individual just saves on their own for the desired amount by the time they need to save it by so they can do whatever it is they wanted to do as a couple.

This way, there is less commitment compared to a joint bank account or a savings jar. I think this is what most couples do unless you are married. I can say that in my past relationships this is the only way I have saved for something with my significant other.

In the end

These are just a few ways I thought about that couple can save money together. There might be some ways you have tried that I haven’t mentioned or even thought about. Let me know if you’ve tried any of these and how they worked!

 

- Author Bio: This post was written by Ryan Paredez who works at Planwise.com  - which is a free personal finance tool that helps people make better financial decisions. 

 

Photo by zoetnet